The present invention relates to apparatus and methods for communications. More specifically the present invention relates to an apparatus and method for duplexed multi-beam satellite communications with multiple listeners.
Traditional satellites provide communication links between terrestrial based transmitters and receivers. Traditional satellite linked communications between terrestrial based transmitters and terrestrial based receivers typically provide for the transmitter transmitting one or more signals up to a satellite and the satellite relaying the one or more signals down to the receiver. These traditional satellites may provide passive or active relays. Traditional satellite communication links have traditionally been in the radio frequency ranges with communication rates in the megabit per second range/and the tens of megabit per second range. These communication links have been used extensively for telephone communications, television signal broadcasts, navigation signal broadcasts and the like. Because radio frequency communications have generally been limited to the megabit and tens of megabit per second range, such communications may be of limited use for the next generation of satellites used for military applications, broadband Internet communication or other applications. For example, the next generation of military satellite applications, such as satellite communication with terrestrial listeners, aerial listeners, and spaced based listeners, may use communication data rates in the hundreds of megabit per second range or even the gigabit per second range. Moreover, such applications may use duplexed communications with a relatively large number of listeners or a few listeners that use relatively large amounts of data in their operations.
Accordingly, there is a need for communication terminals that provide high data rate communication links and that are configured to communicate with a number of listeners disposed across a theater of operations.